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Technical Challenges to Deployment

To elevate the challenges to nuclear deployment and assess whether the nuclear energy ecosystem is prepared to support new deployment at scale, the workshop’s first panel featured a moderated discussion between authors of the 2023 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States¹ and the 2024 White House report Safely and Responsibly Expanding U.S. Nuclear Energy: Deployment Targets and a Framework for Action,² which was developed under President Biden and outlined pathways to expand domestic nuclear energy production. The panelists were Richard A. Meserve, Covington & Burling LLP; Michael Corradini, University of Wisconsin–Madison; and Jonathan Barr, formerly of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. David Petti, Idaho National Laboratory (retired), moderated the discussion.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Key Challenges

Corradini said that some of the challenges of deploying new nuclear reactors are generic, while others are particular to specific technologies.

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¹ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2023, Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States, National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/26630.

² Executive Office of the President, 2024, “Safely and Responsibly Expanding U.S. Nuclear Energy: Deployment Targets and a Framework for Action,” The White House, November.

Challenges related to project planning and construction of new reactors are part of any project, regardless of reactor type. Key challenges that are more technology-specific relate to the fuels, materials, and components required for different reactor designs. Newer reactor designs require a range of fuel types, many of which have not been fully tested or approved; even once they are approved, there are still many steps that would need to be undertaken to source or produce those fuels in sufficient quantities. As noted by Meserve, the United States lacks a reliable supply chain for high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), and Corradini added that, depending on which reactor designs are used, future nuclear energy deployments could also face challenges in developing supply chains for a variety of other materials and components such as beryllium oxide, ferritic steels, squib valves, and printed circuit heat exchangers.

Costs and Incentives

Barr said that interest in the potential for nuclear energy to expand and scale clean, carbon-free, reliable energy has grown, but the cost of building new reactors remains a significant challenge. Positing that overcoming this challenge will require balancing free-market principles with federal subsidies, he described how the White House in 2024 sought to signal to domestic companies and international partners that the United States is committed to facilitating the expansion of nuclear energy to meet bold deployment targets as part of its national nuclear energy strategy given the economic and national security benefits.³

Barr also pointed out that standardization, scaling, and repeated construction will naturally drive costs down. However, at the moment, the field remains crowded with many reactor designs, uses, and customers. Rather than have the federal government “pick winners and losers” directly, he suggested that the best role for the government is to incentivize the private sector to choose which technologies to prioritize and invest in. As an example, he said that the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Gen III+ Small Modular Reactor funding program,⁴ which encourages the formation of teams of reactor developers, builders, utilities, and customers, can help to narrow the field and enable the market to decide which technologies are the most promising, can be built at scale, and will serve the most customers.

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³ Executive Office of the President, 2024, “Safely and Responsibly Expanding U.S. Nuclear Energy: Deployment Targets and a Framework for Action,” The White House, November.

⁴ See Department of Energy, “Generation III+ Small Modular Reactor Program,” https://www.energy.gov/oced/generation-iii-small-modular-reactor-program, accessed April 14, 2025.

Meserve agreed with Barr that the market, not the government, should pick the winners, but he noted that the market may not be ready to do so because there is a high degree of uncertainty around which designs will be successful. Therefore, he posited that federal incentives such as tax credits and loan guarantees and responsible funding programs are needed to fully examine a design’s commercial potential and set strict—and strictly enforced—milestones for development. By focusing its investments on a few technologies but dropping those that fail to meet established milestones, the government can avoid over-investing in options that are unlikely to succeed in the long run, Meserve said. Corradini agreed, noting that a milestone approach has helped Kairos Power to develop its small modular reactor (SMR) designs. He also suggested that financial risks should be shared among plant owner-operators, vendors, and the engineering, procurement, and construction market, a model that he said has worked well in Japan.

Collaboration to Increase Efficiency

In addition to costs and technologies, the amount of time it takes to plan and build nuclear energy plants presents another key challenge to their broader deployment. Panelists discussed opportunities to reduce this timeline with more effective stakeholder collaboration, efficiency improvements, better project management, and lessons learned from experiences in other sectors and other countries.

Meserve noted that light water reactors (LWRs) will be the fastest and easiest to deploy—although still expensive—because they are a tested technology with a defined licensing track record and an existing supply chain. Deploying molten salt reactors or microreactors (most of which are non-LWR technologies) may take longer because their novelty presents construction, licensing, and regulatory hurdles. Barr agreed, noting that national deployment targets can be met most quickly in the near-term by restarting or upgrading existing reactors once projects gain U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval, although the process will still take years. He also stated that the continuation of federal policy for tax credits and expanded loan authorities, as well as funding for technology demonstrations, are all essential for enabling near-term nuclear deployment.

Regardless of the reactor type or project circumstances, Corradini said that close collaboration among NRC regulators and industry plays an important role in a project’s efficiency and eventual success. Having experienced project managers on NRC staff as well as individuals on the applicant’s side who have experience working with regulators can help to keep the process moving forward. In addition, coming together

early in the process for pre-application relationship building and information exchange, an approach recently used by Kairos and NuScale,⁵ can allow vendors to more effectively navigate the steps required for regulatory approvals. Petti agreed, noting that from his perspective as part of NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the process is much smoother when vendors and NRC staff exchange information via electronic reading rooms rather than only through the formal (and time-consuming) Requests for Additional Information.

Meserve said that for its part, the NRC has become more efficient under the provisions of the ADVANCE Act. To continue that progress, he suggested, will require the whole agency to undergo a culture change that emphasizes efficiencies and retrains project managers to create effective teams and build responsive and transparent relationships with vendors. Barr noted that NRC’s updated mission statement⁶ now includes the importance of enabling efficient deployment and expanded hiring authorities intended to help build an expert workforce to support this goal. In addition to the NRC licensing process, Meserve suggested that DOE programs and all relevant guidance documents and regulations could be examined to identify opportunities to further improve efficiency, both domestically and, through the Department of State, globally.

Corradini and Meserve also emphasized that having vendors who are equipped with the experience and sets of expertise needed to effectively manage nuclear construction projects is essential. Meserve noted that delays and cost overruns are not unique to nuclear projects but are also commonly seen in other large, complex initiatives such as building tunnels or ports. However, the successful construction of large-scale infrastructure in general and of nuclear projects in places like South Korea and the United Arab Emirates proves it is possible to complete projects on time and within budget. Meserve suggested that U.S. builders can learn from those projects and even partner with the companies involved to ensure that new nuclear projects have a leadership team with the right expertise, technical and legal skills, and financing to succeed, and Corradini agreed that domestic and international partnerships can be beneficial in bringing together the right sets of experience and expertise for successful nuclear development.

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⁵ The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued construction permits for Kairos Power, LLC, to build the Hermes 1 and 2 fluoride salt–cooled high-temperature-reactor test facilities in 2023 and 2024, respectively. The NRC completed technical review and approval for NuScale’s small modular reactor design in 2020 and amended its regulations to certify the design in 2023.

⁶ NRC News, 2025, “NRC Approves Updated Mission Statement,” January 24, https://www.nrc.gov/cdn/doc-collection-news/2025/25-005.pdf.